The Most Underrated Skills of the Next Decade

Feb 23

We are entering a decade defined by acceleration.

Artificial intelligence will compress time. Automation will remove friction. Information will be immediate and abundant.

Speed is getting cheaper. Discernment is not.

Here are four skills I believe will quietly matter more than ever.

1. Decelerate on Purpose

Want to know when I finally got the clarity to leave a job, without the cushion of something new? It happened after I went on a retreat. There I was finally able to slow down long enough to see what was true. I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Similarly, a few years later I found myself in another role that seemed different to start, but turned out was more of what I didn’t want. I only felt fully ready to leave that behind after I spent 4 months with a new baby, which slowed everything down in a way I had never experienced. Countless hours spent nursing and rocking the babe to sleep in silence. Gives you some time to really see things differently.

In Slowing Down to the Speed of Life, Richard Carlson makes the case that clarity is a natural state of mind. When we stop agitating it, it returns.

That tracks with what I see in coaching. I rarely start a session with “Okay, let’s solve this.” We start with grounding. Slowing the nervous system. Breathing. Once someone settles, insight shows up without being wrestled.

In Scott Barker’s recent piece he uses a metaphor that hasn’t left me: if you’re driving 100 miles per hour and need to make a turn, the most efficient move is not to accelerate. It’s to decelerate.

We’ve been trained to equate efficiency with speed. Delegate. Automate. Compress time. Produce more. But speed and efficiency are not the same thing.

A client came to me convinced she needed a full career overhaul. Once we slowed down, she realized she didn’t need reinvention. She needed to renegotiate scope. The answer had been there. The pace had been drowning it out.

Take-Away Practice:
When you slow the body, the brain often follows. That is not woo. That is physiology. Your vagus nerve responds to breath, posture, muscle tension, and pacing. If your body is moving like it is late for something, your brain will interpret that as urgency.

So, the next time you feel busy, when life is feeling full and fast… slow your body first. Walk 10% slower. If you’re dancing, dance more slowly. Slowness helps you listen.

2. Reduce What You Consume

If you want clarity, reduce input.

In Digital Minimalism,Cal Newport describes digital consumption as an attention tax. “Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not” feels like common sense, but we rarely live it.

In one of my favorite classics,The Artist's Way, author Julia Cameron introduces the concept of a “media fast” and asks readers to abstain from reading for a week. Not as punishment, but as a detox. When we stop consuming, we start hearing ourselves.

I am not immune. I love a podcast. I love a good article. But when I feel scattered, the first thing I try to do, is reduce is input. Sometimes that looks like running without headphones. Sometimes it means no news for a week.

A client recently eliminated optional media for two weeks. She kept work communication, but cut podcasts and evening scrolling. Her feedback was simple: “I feel less reactive.” Nothing else changed, but her nervous system did.

Take-Away Practice:
Pick one optional input stream and remove it for seven days. Observe how your thinking changes when the noise decreases.

3. Be Silent

Reducing inputs is one thing. Being silent is another.

Last week, I tried something that felt both simple and radical: one full hour of intentional silence.

Not meditation. Not journaling. Not stretching. Not brainstorming. Not optimizing. I lay on my bed and stared at the wall. When I started to feel sleepy, I moved to a chair and looked out the window, noticing light, sound, sensation.

The first fifteen minutes were uncomfortable. Then something softened. Questions I had been circling began to untangle on their own. I realized how rarely I experience actual silence. Even when I “rest,” I am usually consuming something.

Silence is clarifying.

There’s actually research that supports this. Cal Newport calls it “solitude deprivation” — the absence of time alone with your own thoughts. If we’re constantly consuming, we never give our mind a chance to process or generate anything original.

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman also talks about how the brain needs periods of low input to shift into states that support insight and integration. In other words, doing nothing is not unproductive. It’s when a lot of important things start to happen.

There’s also a deeper layer to this. In Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde writes about the power of turning inward and trusting what we find there. That kind of listening requires space. It doesn’t happen when every quiet moment is filled.

A senior leader I work with tried a similar practice while wrestling with a strategic decision. In that quiet hour, he realized his hesitation was not about the idea itself, but about team capacity. That distinction changed everything.

Silence did not create the answer. It gave it room.

If an hour sounds like a lot, start with one minute. Set a timer. Sit. No phone. No task. Do that daily and build from there.

Take-Away Practice:
Schedule one hour of intentional silence this week. If that feels impossible, begin with one minute. Expand gradually. Consistency matters more than duration.

4. Integrate What Surfaces

Insight is lovely. Action makes it useful.

After you slow down or sit in silence, ask: what now?

For me, integration often looks like speaking emerging clarity out loud to someone I trust. Naming it makes it real. For clients, it might mean declining one meeting, renegotiating one boundary, or protecting one priority.

A client recently realized she was overcommitted to visibility strategies that no longer aligned with her values. Instead of burning everything down, she scaled back and protected the one initiative that felt true. The relief was immediate.

This is where integration matters. Integration includes 2 pieces: First, the naming of the thing, and second, letting it change you.

Naming what surfaced in moments of reflection matters. Brené Brown writes in Dare to Lead about how we can’t act on what we haven’t named. There’s something about putting words to it that makes it real enough to move on.

Oliver Burkeman makes the case in Four Thousand Weeks that the real challenge isn’t time management, it’s accepting that we can’t do everything. You don’t build a meaningful life by thinking about everything. You build it by choosing something and acting on it. Action has power.

bell hooks writes in All About Love about the importance of conscious, intentional action in how we live. Awareness alone isn’t enough. It’s what we choose to do with that awareness that begins to shift things.

Take-Away Practice:
After your next reflective pause, identify one small behavioral shift you can implement within 48 hours. Keep it specific. Keep it doable.

Why This Matters Now

In the age of AI, speed will be handled for us. Your edge will not be how fast you move. It will be how clearly you see.

The ability to decelerate, reduce inputs, tolerate silence, and integrate what surfaces will quietly differentiate you.

These are not personality traits. They are practices. You can absolutely cultivate them on your own.

And if you would value structured support in building these skills, I am offering 15 private sessions through The Intentional Year Project. Together we will clarify your priorities, identify what is diffusing your energy, and design aligned next steps for you to explore to make this year on of intentionality.

These conversations are for people who want to move forward, but not blindly.

Jen Ottovegio